Michael Sandel's no
During the lockdown, the well-known Harvard philosopher, Michael Sandel, sharply declined the proposal to publish new MOOCS (Massive online open courses) courses online. An activity in relation to which Sandel had not had particular problems in the past in reconciling him with the core of his moral thought, that is, the question of justice.
Although free and accessible to all, in such a delicate moment for schools and universities, the increase in the Moocs offer could have damaged traditional education, already put to the test by the pandemic.
This is the reason why Sandel, a real celebrity thanks also to the online, has declined the offer to keep new ones. In reality, there is a subtle competition, from which open conflicts could arise, between traditional university education and the "new" education represented by MOOCs and online learning platforms.
The Editech Boom
Indeed, the growing cost of traditional degree courses in the United States, and also in Europe, offers a significant opening to MOOCs and online platforms. If we include the cost of living, a four-year degree course can demand a few hundred thousand euros, particularly from an off-site student. The new learning platforms are cheaper. With universities closed, e-learning is benefiting from a boom that no one expected to see at this time.
US edtech startups raised a record $1,7 billion last year. This year they could easily surpass this already large collection, according to the "Financial Times".
The London financial newspaper cites some significant examples. Among these MasterClass in San Francisco which has already raised 100 million dollars. A hybrid of Ted Talks and the Open University, MasterClass offers thousands of lectures produced by "the world's eighty best minds" (so the ad goes) for $16,67 a month (not even $200 a year).
The "Financial Times" still reports, quoting a reliable source, that one in three graduating students in the United States attends at least one online course. The fastest growing group is made up of adults. Many of them need more flexibility than a four-year degree program offers. About 15% of students study entirely online, again according to the source reported by the "FT".
A difficult race
Not that it's a big surprise. For nearly a decade, MOOCs have been seen as the future of education. Courses are usually free, but certifications are paid. In the United States, on average, college credits cost just under $600 per hour. Coursera offers a bachelor's degree from a US university for $330 per accreditation hour. A similar edX plan costs less than $200. Outlier, created by MasterClass co-founder Aaron Rasmussen, costs $400.
Yet MOOCs providers such as Coursera have never really been able to compete in terms of prestige and networking opportunities with traditional universities. Many see the reason for this failure as the fact that MOOCs courses are, in the end, too boring to follow all the way and methodically. Analysis of courses taught on edX from MIT and Harvard showed that only 3% of participants completed them in 2017/18.
Coursera's educational and business model was studied by three professors of the University of Amsterdam (Josf Van Dijck, Thomas Poell and Martijn De Waal) and reported in a chapter of their beautiful book Platform Society. Public values and connected society, now also available in Italian thanks to Guerini e Associati.
We are pleased to offer you, below, the complete extract which deals with the Moocs model set up by Coursera.
The impact of Moocs
The platformization of university education has manifested itself in various forms; one of the first was the rapid affirmation of the MOOCs. These popular online learning tools were initially promoted as future alternatives, or even replacements, for college education.
Since their emergence in 2012, US-based platforms such as Coursera, edX and Udacity have positioned themselves as global enterprises, some run on profit models and others run as non-profit collaborations between universities and high-tech companies.
MOOCs did not appear out of nowhere, but are part of a long tradition of distance learning, and later e-learning, in the United States and on the European continent. Between 2013 and 2015, global interest in MOOCs increased as each of them managed to fill a precise market niche. While MOOCs' fame may now seem a little faded, their effects on higher education as a global online marketplace continue to be felt in the United States and Europe.
The learnification
We will delve into the case of Coursera, a profit platform founded in 2012 at Stanford that has offered thousands of online courses to students from all over the world[1]. Coursera uses many of the dataification and selection mechanisms already described; the platform also adheres to the principles of learnification and implements personalized learning strategies based on predictive analysis.
In a previous article we detailed how the mechanisms of dataification and personalization are driving the development of online MOOCs. For the purposes of this chapter, we will focus on the mechanism of commodification, which underpins Coursera's business model.
Coursera's offer
Similar to Facebook, Google and other major platforms, Coursera mostly offers free content for end users; students can register and follow videotaped lessons, complete online exercises and take tests.
Coursera's purpose is to connect educational content to a mass audience on a global scale. Acquiring users is critical to achieving network effects; MOOCs therefore have a specific interest in attracting large numbers of participants to extract large datasets and numerous student profiles.
The more (meta)data you collect, the more you learn about your users. But how does Coursera make money from its activities?
MOOCs are free for end users, but they aren't cheap. Coursera has experimented with various business models in recent years and is still refining its monetization systems.
The revenue of the platform is primarily due to the investments of the universities and colleges with which it collaborates.
The traditional teaching model
It is interesting to compare Coursera's business model with that of traditional institutions — public and private universities — that offer a bundled learning experience. This experience includes classrooms for teaching, services, libraries and intensive courses that include certification, orientation, tutoring and tests.
For this all-inclusive package, students pay tuition and tuition fees; in the case of public education, taxpayers finance institutions so that university education is affordable and accessible to the majority of citizens.
The traditional business model of universities reflects a conception of academic education as a global learning experience, based on Bildung-focused study paths; rather than churning out highly skilled workers, public education promotes the formation of aware and critical citizens, a precondition for the good health of democracies.
Most academic institutions still focus on the curriculum-based or degree-based diploma principle, although many universities also offer single courses through in-depth modules or ad hoc programs for specific student groups.
The didactic model of the Moocs
In the case of the MOOC platforms, learning is not the Bildung but at the center of education; the basic unit of business is not the curriculum but a single course: a single unit that can be «unbundled» and «reassembled» (rebundled) into an online «product» offered outside a context local university and intended for a widespread audience throughout the world.
Coursera's model is in line with the way in which "connectors" such as Facebook and Google promote the "unbundling" of news content: articles and advertisements are no longer offered as a package (the newspaper) but are redistributed through Facebook Instant Articles, the News Feed and Google News.
As in the case of news production, Coursera acts as a "connector" in a multisided market, capable of connecting content, students and third parties.
Who pays for the free?
But who pays for the product online? The contents are produced and paid for by the universities associated with Coursera; universities usually pay teachers who develop course content and mentors who handle student feedback and requests.
Universities and teachers therefore act as complementary enterprises of these online "connectors". In collaboration with platforms, universities can choose to offer some online courses for free by asking students to pay for additional content. If universities impose tuition fees they have to share the revenue with the platform.
Universities, in other words, invest heavily in Coursera's business model by covering the costs of content and teaching, while the platform receives compensation for its "connection services".
Just as Uber doesn't own cars or hire drivers, Coursera doesn't employ faculty or own school buildings.
The premium activity
Even if the «free» model dominates the MOOC market, the premium version enriches the free option with extra paid services such as the so-called «signature tracks», which require the payment of a fee for end-of-course certificates, exams carried out under supervision and identity verification.
Supervised examinations and recognized degrees have progressively developed into — potentially profitable — units that can be marketed globally.
These micro-degrees or nano-degrees are increasingly widespread, particularly in sectors where they are aimed at professionals who intend to acquire specific skills.
What we are witnessing in the United States is a team game between educational platforms and hi-tech companies to train a qualified workforce: Coursera, in collaboration with Google, Instagram and others, offers the so-called capstone projects ), i.e. online internships in which students receive tasks from companies to develop technological and marketing skills.
In addition to the work done in these projects, the data collected during the student learning process is of great interest to companies looking for future employees.
Selling data
Probably the most profitable business model for online educational content is one that involves collecting and selling user data.
Coursera's value proposition is in line with that of most social media platforms: profit is made by leveraging the value that the data has for interested third parties. Every user who signs up on the platform ticks a box that allows Coursera to collect all of their data.
It is currently unclear how Coursera monetizes this massive amount of data. Placing advertisements in online content is an unexplored option yet, but could be a lucrative value proposition in the future; Coursera is already fully integrated into the platform ecosystem where Facebook and Google control online advertising.
As we noted in the AltSchool example, the wealth of learning behavior data collected by students can be sold to companies that compete with each other for talent. Learning data has tremendous value; combined with other data, such as personal social media profiles or health and fitness data, personalized information represents a gold mine not only for potential employers, but also for insurance companies or consumer goods companies.
The repurposing of student data in the US is largely a legal gray area; in the case of platforms such as Coursera or other MOOCs, privacy laws appear obsolete and insufficient.
The appeal of the Moocs
If we look at the mechanisms on which the development of MOOCs is based, we cannot deny their disruptive force in the global panorama of academic education. Many see the trend towards providing personalised, data-driven and tailored online learning materials as a positive development.
The idea of proposing courses on demand, free from institutional contexts, represents a very attractive model in a world where skills related to lifelong learning are increasingly important and quality university education, particularly in the United States, has become a privilege that many aspire to, but few can afford.
The higher the cost of the university "complete package", the more attractive the "unpackaged" proposal of the MOOCs becomes. For those who cannot enroll in a traditional college, the alternative of buying the "derivative" of a highly coveted degree can be very attractive.
Moocs vs public education?
Although MOOCs can be complementary to current university courses and bring advantages to individual students, in the long run they could undermine some fundamental values of the collective public system.
While few see MOOCs as posing a threat to 'physical' educational institutions, they are likely to have a major impact on education as an integral part of the public sector, particularly in Europe where public education is still considered an important contribution to the common good.
While it is impossible to predict how deeply the dynamics of platformization will penetrate traditional higher education structures, two possible implications follow from the above analysis. First, public schools and universities have functioned as great balancers, proven engines of upward mobility due to their economic sustainability and equal access opportunity policies.
Secondly, while schools and universities have been guaranteed autonomy in the formulation of educational paths, the protection of educational standards has always been a matter of public responsibility, controlled and implemented by independent agencies.
Platformisation tends to overturn these public values of equal access, professional autonomy and accountability.
Social positioning of the Moocs
To start at the former, MOOCs are often presented as hi-tech solutions for a public institution in decline: an institution that neglects underprivileged and poor students and has become less accessible for students in financial difficulty due to its rising costs .
Coursera uses compelling rhetoric to promote the platform's potential for scale that makes higher education accessible to underserved students around the world, particularly in developing countries.
There is little evidence so far that MOOCs improve the accessibility or affordability of education. In reality, MOOCs produce «new relationships in the geometries between learners, content developers, delivery and evaluation» of education.
But one way or another this 'new geometry' is heavily dependent on quality content provided by quality teachers, which is paid for by student fees and general taxation.
The widely held argument that the money needed to renovate public schools should be spent on private schools and high-tech advanced education has become an increasingly common argument, particularly in the United States, where it is leading to the dismantling of the public system.
The professional autonomy of teachers
Another public value at stake is the professional autonomy of teachers in defining their own content according to an extremely centralized and standardized global distribution platform.
Cousera's potential for scale is driven by a commercial business model, but even in the case of non-profit MOOCs, the need to work on a global scale profoundly affects the autonomy of teachers to design courses according to their own training guidelines.
For example, edX is the largest non-profit MOOC company. Unlike Coursera, edX initially resisted the push from venture capitalists to scale out and make quick profits, which allowed it to focus on experimenting and collaborating with educators to develop a sustainable online environment.
Yet he demonstrated in his ethnographic study of edX practices, within a few years, the "architects of edX" have increased pressure to increase platform scalability and global standardization.
Meanwhile, the educators and college administrations involved have seen a progressive decline in their "ability to set the agenda and steer the course of software").
edX system architects admit they struggle with the dual needs of satisfying their customers and addressing the demands of the wider community (eg, the open source community and researchers).
The issue of accountability
Finally, the third public value under discussion is accountability: the role of independent accreditation and certification institutions in protecting the value of educational credits and qualifications.
To a large extent, the regulation of quality standards in education is still managed by national agencies and, especially in Europe, by government institutions subject to democratic control.
Platformisation, in a connected world, could lead to the privatization of certification and accreditation systems.
Coursera is in some ways interested in setting international standards for credits and exams; just as Facebook intends to offer a standard for identity verification, Coursera aims to conquer the gatekeeping position in the accreditation and certification sector.
Since Coursera operates on a global scale while many accreditation schemes are still governed by national or supranational (European) agencies, there is a potentially profitable market.
Uber and Airbnb have proven they can destabilize entire industries by fighting regulatory conflicts at the national or local level; by setting up its own accreditation system, Coursera could easily circumvent the current legislation and consequently compromise the governance of the public sector.
